Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/889

Rh F A I F A 1 853 resign his commission as Commander-in-chief, but he was persuaded to retain it, and was passive, if not co-operating, in all the proceedings of the army which had for their object to destroy the power of parliament. Lord Fer- dinando Fairfax died in the spring of 1G47, and Sir Thomas succeeded to his title and to his office as governor of Hull. A second civil war broke out in the summer of 1648; a Scots army of 40,000 was raised to deliver the king from the &quot; sectaries ;&quot; there were tumults in England and in Wales. Fairfax displayed the greatest activity in putting down these insurrections, and took Colchester, whither the royalist army had betaken themselves. It was at this time, when the commander-in-cliief was besieging Colchester, that Milton addressed to him the sonnet : &quot; Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings, Filling each mouth with envy or with praise.&quot; The poet eulogizes the brave soldier for &quot; firm unshaken virtue,&quot; but he hesitated to go along with the army and In dependents in the trial of the king. He was placed at the head of the judges before whom Charles was arraigned, but he refused to act. In calling over the court, when the crier pronounced the name of Fairfax, a lady in the gallery called out &quot; that the Lord Fairfax was not there in person, that he would never sit among them, and that they did him wrong to name him as a commissioner.&quot; This was Lady Fairfax, who could not forbear, as Whitelock says, to exclaim aloud against the proceedings of the High Court of Justice. The decision of the court was a grievous error. &quot; When living, Charles was a baffled tyrant,&quot; as Lord John Russell has remarked; &quot;when dead he became a royal martyr.&quot; In June 1650, after the Scots had declared for Charles II., the council of state resolved to send an army to Scotland in order to prevent an invasion of England. Fairfax declined to act against the Presbyterian Scots, and resigned his com mission. Cromwell was appointed his successor, &quot;captain- general and commander-in-chief of all tlie forces raised or to be raised by authority of parliament within the common wealth of England.&quot; Fairfax received a pension of 5000 a year, and is no more heard of till after the death of the triumphant Protector. When Monk invited him to assist in the operations about to be undertaken against Lambert s army he promptly obeyed the call, and in December 1659 appeared at the head of a body of Yorkshire gentlemen ; and such was the influence of Fairfax s name and reputation that the Irish brigade, consisting of 1200 horse, quitted Lambert s colours and joined him. This was speedily followed by the breaking up of all Lambert s forces, and that day secured the restoration of the monarchy. A &quot;free &quot; parliament was called ; Fairfax was elected member for Yorkshire, and was put at the head of the commission appointed by the House of Commons to wait upon Charles II. at the Hague and urge his speedy return. Of course the &quot; merry monarch, scandalous and poor,&quot; was glad to obey the summons, and Fairfax provided the horse on which Charles rode at his coronation. The remaining eleven years of the life of Lord Fairfax were spent in retirement at his seat in Yorkshire. He must, like Milton, have been sorely grieved and shocked by the scenes that followed the brutal indignities offered to the remains of his companions in arms, Cromwell and Ireton, the sacrifice of Sir Harry Vane, the neglect or desecration of all that was great, noble, or graceful in England, and the flood of immorality which, flowing from Whitehall, sapped the foundations of the national strength and honour. Lord Fairfax died at Nunappleton on the 12th of November 1671. The integrity of Fairfax has never been doubted. No one has ever attempted to charge mean ness or corruption on the Parliamentary general. But he was great only in the field, and had apparently none of the qualities of a statesman. He is placed at great disadvan- j tage, however, by being both in war and in peace over shadowed by his associate Cromwell : &quot;And under him His genius was rebuked, as, it is said, Mark Antony s was by Caesar.&quot; Lord Fairfax had a taste for literature. He translated some of the Psalms, and wrote poems on solitude, the Chris tian warfare, the shortness of life, &c., none of which are above mediocrity. During the last year or two of his life he wrote two Memorials which have been published one on the northern actions in which he was engaged in 1642-44, and the other on some points during his command in the army. At York and at Oxford he endeavoured to save the libraries from pillage, and he enriched the Bodleian with some valuable MSS. His correspondence was pub lished in 1848-9 in four volumes, and a life of him by Clements R. Markham in 1870. (R. CA.) F AIRFIELD, a town and port of entry of Fairfield co., Connecticut, is situated near Long Island Sound, and on the New York and New Haven railroad, 22 miles S.W. of New Haven. It consists chiefly of one spacious street of new and handsome buildings. The beautiful scenery and fine sea air of the neighbourhood attract to the town a consider able number of summer visitors, but its prosperity depends chiefly on its shipping trade. About one and a half miles south-east from the town is Black Rock, one of the finest harbours of the state. Fairfield was settled in 1659. In 1779 it was burned by the British under Governor Tryon. The population in 1870 numbered 5645, but since then a portion of the town, containing more than a fourth of the inhabitants, has been annexed to Bridgeport. FAIRHOLT, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1813-1866), a most industrious antiquary, draughtsman, and editor of our older literature, was born in London in the year 1813. His father, who was of a German family (the name was originally Fahrholz), was a tobacco manufacturer, and for some years Fairholt himself was employed in the business. He had, however, other aims. For a time he was a draw ing-master, afterwards a scene-painter. Some pen and ink copies made by him of figures from Hogarth s plates led to his being employed by Charles Knight on several of that gentleman s illustrated publications. His first published literary work was a contribution to Hone s Year-Book in 1831. His life seems to have been one of almost uninter rupted quiet labour, carried on until within a few days of death. Several works on civic pageantry and some collec tions of ancient unpublished songs and dialogues were edited by him for the Percy Society in 1842. In 1844 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. An edition of the dramatic works of Lilly was published by him in 1853. His principal independent works are Tobacco, its History and Association, 1859 ; U&amp;gt; the Nile and JIume A/jain, 1862; many articles and serials contributed to the Art Journal, some of which were afterwards separately published, as Costume in EnylanJ, 1846; Dictionary of Terms m Art, 1854. These works are illustrated by numerous cuts, drawn on the wood by his own hand. His pencil was also employed in illustrating Evan s Coins of the Ancient Britons, Madden s Jewish Coi/utf/e, Halli well s folio tiluikes)&amp;gt;eare, Roach Smith s RichburouaJi, the Miscellanea GrajJtira of Lord Londesborough, and many other works. Mr Fairholt was entirely a Londoner; born in London, and never out of sight of !St Paul s for the first twenty-two years of his life, he ever loved a paved street better than a green lane. His later years were mufii troubled by disease which, tho .igh temporarily alleviated by a voyage to Egypt and Nubia with the present Lord Londesborough, terminated in consumption. He died April 3, 1866. His books relating to Shakespeare were be queathed to the library at Stratford-on-Avon ; those on civic